I bought a cheap wireless usb adapter off ebay. It is a Realtek RTL8192cu. I am dual booting Windows XP Professional and Mint 9 XFCE. I have the usb adapter working in Windows and I have the Windows wireless drivers installed in nvidsrapper but when I go configure network I have nothing to select. This is the first time I have tried to install a wireless usb device in linux and am lost as to where to go from here.

Last edited by castletonia on Sat Feb 18, 2012 12:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If you prefer ndiswrapper, download XP driver for your card from the link above (v14114-OmniPeek-V6_CU_DU.zip),extract the zip archive, and then use then Menu > Administration > Windows Wireless Drivers. Now navigate to theextracted folder and select "netrtwlanu.inf".Note: Be careful to select the inf file in 'X64' or 'X86' folder according to your systems architecture.

If you prefer Linux drivers, use the link above and download the driver (RTL819xCU_USB_linux_ v3[1].3.2_3192.zip)Righ click the zip archive and select "Extract Here". The zip archive will be extracted to a folder called "RTL8188C_8192C_8192D_USB_linux_v3.3.2_3192.20120103"Right click this folder and select "Open in Terminal"Now in Terminal, type the commands below to run the installation script:

Hmm, I thought gcc is installed already in Mint... oh well, maybe it's not so in Mint 9, I've never seen it actually Nevermind. How did you make the driver work before the reboot? What was the installation script's output this time?

I have essentially the same circumstances as discussed in this thread, and have tried running the installs from linux and the installed net8192cu.inf that came with the device. When I click the icon on the bottom of the screen it shows that I have Wireless Network (Realtek 802.11n WLAN Adapter) wireless is disabled. How do I enable it?

Ok, so I was not completely correct. I do not have to reinstall the driver on each reboot. If I go to system/settings and check for available drivers, my wireless driver is detected and activated, but not in use. I have to deactivate, then reactivate for it to start working. I have it set to automatically connect.

I do still have the ndiswrapper windows driver installed but have never been able to get it working.

castletonia wrote:Ok, so I was not completely correct. I do not have to reinstall the driver on each reboot. If I go to system/settings and check for available drivers, my wireless driver is detected and activated, but not in use. I have to deactivate, then reactivate for it to start working. I have it set to automatically connect.I do still have the ndiswrapper windows driver installed but have never been able to get it working...

There are three drivers here: net8192cu (Windows driver), rtl8192cu (kernel's driver) and 8192cu (Realtek driver)Lets remove the first one, blacklist the second one and make the third one start at boot:sudo modprobe -r ndiswrappersudo ndiswrapper -e net8192cuecho "blacklist rtl8192cu" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-rtl8192cu.confecho 8192cu | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

mads, your awesome. I have tried rebooting 3 times to make sure and each time wireless works right away. I appreciate all the help as I would have never figured this out on my own. Now I have run out of reasons to boot into Windows XP.

One last question. Will this process be similar on each version of Mint? I am planning on putting Mint 13 on a different computer when it comes out.

Every next Mint contains a newer kernel. Chances are rtl8192cu will be fixed by that time and will work correctly with your device, so you won't need to go through all that again.

If not, there's always another option - to install compat-wireless. That's the whole wireless drivers pack pulled from newer kernels to provide better wireless support on older ones. I don't know if there's a HOWTO for installing them though. Here's some documentation:

castletonia wrote:mads, your awesome. I have tried rebooting 3 times to make sure and each time wireless works right away. I appreciate all the help as I would have never figured this out on my own. Now I have run out of reasons to boot into Windows XP.

One last question. Will this process be similar on each version of Mint? I am planning on putting Mint 13 on a different computer when it comes out.

Your steps to install Realtek Linux driver helped me get my PCi-GWUSExtreme to work on Ubuntu 11.10 x64. The wireless usb dongle worked when plugged in however was only able to detect some wireless network but not all. It was on rtl8192cu driver. I tried install Win XP (and Win 7) driver with ndiswrapper, but that didn't solve the problem. I read in forums that Ubuntu >=11.04 does not like Channel >=12, and thought there will be solution until I read your steps. I followed the same steps as you described. I did not have problem with dependency packages, however I had to

before the installation, or the installer would complain. The wireless adaptor immediately detected all other wireless networks after the installation. However, as you pointed out, upon restart the system reverted back to rtl8192cu. I removed the ndiswrapper Win net8192cu driver followed your instruction to blacklist rtl8192cu and enable 8192cu.

I'm having similar issues as those described in the OP, but I haven't managed to address them yet. I installed the Realtek drivers and I can get them to work momentarily but network speeds will always quickly grind to a halt. I suspect that the main issue is that I'm not able to properly blacklist the kernel drivers and they're somehow interfering with the functioning of the Realtek drivers. "dmesg | grep 8192" will always show some rtl8192 entries once the USB device is inserted. Should I do something above and beyond

Righ click the zip archive and select "Extract Here". The zip archive will be extracted to a folder called "RTL8188C_8192C_8192D_USB_linux_v3.3.2_3192.20120103"Right click this folder and select "Open in Terminal"Now in Terminal, type the commands below to run the installation script:CODE: SELECT ALLchmod +x install.shsudo ./install.sh